"It was so bad when he died, Quentin," Jedao murmurs, hiding his face against Quentin's shirt again, dragging in his breaths. "He was - so happy the last moment, really at peace, and I felt him walk away and he was gone, right down in my soul where we'd been holding each other up, and I couldn't even hate him for it."
It shudders out of him, like the pain shook some keystone loose, and now the rest of it is falling in chunks.
"It was grief but it wasn't just - it felt like someone pulled a plug somewhere in the awful core of me, and everything I am was going to drain away, or tar seeping up through me, and I was going to be like that forever, if I couldn't get my balance back, if I couldn't stop it up. And I hadn't anything to do but sit and feel it but then there were the deaths and everything else needed doing."
"Yeah," he breathes, softly, and reaches up to rub his back, on the other side of where he bit him, "yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine, losing a bond like that. I wish I had known sooner. Maybe I could have done something sooner."
And, squeezing him a little tighter, just once.
"You are not alone, and the upshot to be brave enough to admit you need help is that you sometimes get it."
"I would have asked," he says, because he had thought about it, his mind always whirring along different contingencies. "You or Jean. But then it happened so fast."
"It's still there. All - hollow. Like the feeling when you lose a tooth."
But it isn't consuming him any more. He sighs and settles more firmly against Quentin.
"S'there anything you...need to check, want me to say?" He doesn't want to leave Quentin with any worries that he hurt Jedao in any way he didn't want, didn't need.
Admits Quentin, and tips them over a little, tucking the blanket tighter around their bodies.
"Hm." Thinking this through. "I guess I'd be curious to know if this changes how you'll think of me? I mean, I'm sure it must, some ways for good, some ways for different- some ways for bad, even. But as I struggle a bit to reconcile this all with myself, it'd help to know how you see it."
He huffs at this and rolls his eyes, muttering "Eyefox wept." And then....less grumpily, "I mean I've had a few punched out, but that's different and terrible, don't do that."
He sneaks a hand beneath Quentin's shirt, just to settle himself with the warmth of skin under his fingertips, mulling over the question he'd been derailed from.
"I don't know if I've...processed it for me enough to know yet how it'll come out when I process it about you. I think I won't be able to compartmentalize you as much. I don't think the...being able to give me the pain, or even liking it, doesn't change how I feel about you very much. I knew if you said yes, you'd give me what I needed. And you'd be lovely and tender and deliberate and searing, and you were. But being inside the magic like that, it was different than with the foxes. It was different than everything. I feel a little bit farther away from you and a little bit closer, at the same time."
He agrees, settled by this, because, his verdict is;
"I think everything you saw today was true. I behaved- differently with you, but not, I think, in a way that was untrue to myself or unfair or unkind to you, so now matter how the chips fall- you know more of the truth about me, and so, it so happens, do I. So that's okay."
"Yes. And there were pieces I - sort knew. But never got around to putting together with the rest of you? You're the only one of my mathematicians who ever made me sad I couldn't see it too."
He doesn't know that it's true until he hears himself say it, but there's a sweetness to the melancholy. He's been angry about that, bitter, resigned, but always for strategic, pragmatic reasons. This is just for the thing itself, and for him.
"And I feel a little bit like I maybe don't deserve you. But I'll probably get over that." He smiles, sleepy and cheeky, presses a kiss to Quentin's neck. While he's there, he whispers, "You still make me feel peaceful. More than ever."
The last gift he would ever have looked for, or imagined.
"That's funny, because a lot of the time I know I don't deserve you either."
He answers, a private little secret, an unconscious clutch of his fingers, which he tries to disguise by shifting them down so they can curl up, so Jedao can lie on his side and be spooned in safe while Quentin curls around him.
"Silly," Jedao murmurs, turning obligingly, although he knows Quentin too well to be really surprised by it. He laces his fingers with one of Quentin's hands where his arm is wrapped around Jedao, and tugs it up so Jedao can kiss his knuckles.
"My silly splendid darling. You deserve all the wonders your heart can hold."
He feels a surge of something so intense he can't identify it, except to feel glad that he can hide his expression in Jedao's hair. He likes the way his knees hitch in just behind his, how warm he feels.
Jedao shivers at the word 'carving', prickles down his spine and warmth in his gut even if he's halfway to dozing.
"I've got an arm reserved for you already," he mumbles. He's committed to a few tattoo ideas today. "Would it be...weird, less romantic, if I asked you to do my horse too?"
If only because Quentin liked him, and Fives didn't.
Jedao is exhausted on every level, and just now feels as safe and soft as he knows how to feel. Normally his sleep is always some variety of strained, but now he really does drift off within the first minute of quiet.
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magician_king) wrote2020-01-12 01:19 pm
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It shudders out of him, like the pain shook some keystone loose, and now the rest of it is falling in chunks.
"It was grief but it wasn't just - it felt like someone pulled a plug somewhere in the awful core of me, and everything I am was going to drain away, or tar seeping up through me, and I was going to be like that forever, if I couldn't get my balance back, if I couldn't stop it up. And I hadn't anything to do but sit and feel it but then there were the deaths and everything else needed doing."
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And, squeezing him a little tighter, just once.
"You are not alone, and the upshot to be brave enough to admit you need help is that you sometimes get it."
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"It's okay now. You made it through it."
A little more water, then, one more candy.
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But it isn't consuming him any more. He sighs and settles more firmly against Quentin.
"S'there anything you...need to check, want me to say?" He doesn't want to leave Quentin with any worries that he hurt Jedao in any way he didn't want, didn't need.
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Admits Quentin, and tips them over a little, tucking the blanket tighter around their bodies.
"Hm." Thinking this through. "I guess I'd be curious to know if this changes how you'll think of me? I mean, I'm sure it must, some ways for good, some ways for different- some ways for bad, even. But as I struggle a bit to reconcile this all with myself, it'd help to know how you see it."
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This is much, much weirder than being able to play his nerves like a harp.
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He says, and kisses the top of his head.
"I don't remember losing my teeth, anyways."
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He sneaks a hand beneath Quentin's shirt, just to settle himself with the warmth of skin under his fingertips, mulling over the question he'd been derailed from.
"I don't know if I've...processed it for me enough to know yet how it'll come out when I process it about you. I think I won't be able to compartmentalize you as much. I don't think the...being able to give me the pain, or even liking it, doesn't change how I feel about you very much. I knew if you said yes, you'd give me what I needed. And you'd be lovely and tender and deliberate and searing, and you were. But being inside the magic like that, it was different than with the foxes. It was different than everything. I feel a little bit farther away from you and a little bit closer, at the same time."
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He agrees, settled by this, because, his verdict is;
"I think everything you saw today was true. I behaved- differently with you, but not, I think, in a way that was untrue to myself or unfair or unkind to you, so now matter how the chips fall- you know more of the truth about me, and so, it so happens, do I. So that's okay."
For better, for worse.
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He doesn't know that it's true until he hears himself say it, but there's a sweetness to the melancholy. He's been angry about that, bitter, resigned, but always for strategic, pragmatic reasons. This is just for the thing itself, and for him.
"And I feel a little bit like I maybe don't deserve you. But I'll probably get over that." He smiles, sleepy and cheeky, presses a kiss to Quentin's neck. While he's there, he whispers, "You still make me feel peaceful. More than ever."
The last gift he would ever have looked for, or imagined.
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He answers, a private little secret, an unconscious clutch of his fingers, which he tries to disguise by shifting them down so they can curl up, so Jedao can lie on his side and be spooned in safe while Quentin curls around him.
"And you make me feel strong."
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"My silly splendid darling. You deserve all the wonders your heart can hold."
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"Either way, I am incredibly fucking lucky."
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He promises, sleepily.
"If you want, of course."
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"I'd like that very much," he answers softly.
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He says,
"But I could use a tattoo, or something."
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"I've got an arm reserved for you already," he mumbles. He's committed to a few tattoo ideas today. "Would it be...weird, less romantic, if I asked you to do my horse too?"
If only because Quentin liked him, and Fives didn't.
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He says, and yawns deeply, snuggles in a little less frantically, a little more comfortable.
"Think you could nap?"
Because he's going to pass out.
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"Maybe if you could stop being utterly fascinating for five seconds at stretch, darling."
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